


draft

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4907269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Touka reads. Somewhere in all his old favorites should be a clue to who he is now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	draft

**Author's Note:**

> ／(･ × ･)＼ just a plot bunny ˎ₍•ʚ•₎ˏ
> 
> contains: ~1000 words, mostly/some Sen/Touka, a little Touka/Sasaki, & an idea by neimanaof tumblr /// hope you’re having a good day~*~*~

She’d never gone out of her way before, had never even touched one, but now, there are so many of them that she always wakes to find that shifting around in her sleep has caused several to fall to the floor.

Touka slides her legs from her bed, and bends down tiredly, to collect them all again.

She’s been trying for a while now. Maybe it’s just that she sucks at literature. These passages don’t seem like anything more than an endless string of circumstances, one after another, without any connection to things other than their own universes. In any case, no amount of reading and re-reading has given her any insight.

_These words were in his head_ , she thinks, turning the pages. _These exact words_.

Somewhere in here could be some clue. A clue to all his thoughts, back then. A clue to why he changed, so drastically. A clue to what might still remain, now that he’s changed, again.

She lingers over every sentence. Chews, ruminates, digests.

And never quite feels full.

:::

When the shelves are finally up in the cafe, she transfers them, armful by armful. She arranges them, carefully, though their spines are bent and broken, and no one could recognize their titles anyway.

:::

Or so she thinks.

One day, a customer’s eyes widen.

“ _The Black Goat’s Egg_ ,” they say in surprise.

“Ah,” Touka says, making a smile. “You recognize it?”

“Hmmmm. I suppose you could say that.” They turn to her, and adjust their glasses. “You like it?”

“Well…I’ve read it over and over,” Touka responds, honestly.

The customer smiles back at her, broadly. “Wow, really? I’m so pleased to hear that.”

And they introduce themselves.

:::

_Takatsuki Sen._

Touka flees so fast that she almost forgets to take the order.

_Takatsuki Sen_.

It’s exciting. And, sickening.

Like meeting an ex-lover.

Or, worse — a current one.

In the end, no matter how much time Touka spent with him, Takatsuki Sen was _closer._

She was there, longer. Right inside his brain.

Maybe, even now, it’s her words that are keeping him company.

:::

Takatsuki Sen visits again. And again. And again.

Most likely, it’s because Touka keeps talking to her. She is — surprisingly kind. She entertains all of Touka’s questions, asks about Touka’s favorite parts, seems honestly pleased that Touka can recite so much of her constructions.

Touka moves. She upgrades the size of Takatsuki Sen’s drinks for free. Also free: pastries, which Touka saves for Takatsuki Sen so that Touka can sit, trying to learn more, as Takatsuki Sen licks the last crumbs from her lips.

_“What did you mean by this?”_

_“What does that part symbolize?”_

_“Who were you thinking of, with that character? Was it a person in particular? A combination of persons?”_

Touka moves. Carefully, slowly, but surely — the same way she might when following a figure into an alley.  It’s not hard, mostly because Takatsuki Sen might as well be beckoning with her finger.

“I never met someone who was as fascinated with my writing as you,” Takatsuki Sen says, eyes and glasses glinting.

_Thank you_ , Touka expects to hear next, but instead, Takatsuki Sen says, “What is it that you’re trying to know?”

Touka recoils.

“N-nothing.”

And Takatsuki Sen just smiles.

:::

The circumstances seem endless. Stringed. Disconnected, from the rest of the universe.

Mesmerizing smiles. A brush of fingertips. A warm voice.

And slowly, the words infect her.

_Was this what Kaneki felt_?

The more of Takatsuki Sen’s writing she understands, the more she realizes that it’s the writing that understands _her_. The more she swallows, the more she realizes that the sentences were there all along, painted on the inside of her skin. Touka describes it exactly like this, and Takatsuki Sen says, “How poetic.”

One day, Touka swallows, and asks for an autograph, and Takatsuki Sen beckons, and Touka moves, into the alley. Up the stairs. Through the door.

It’s a small apartment. Columns of books take up almost all the floorspace. The bed is pushed up against a computer desk but there’s still enough room for Touka to lie flat, on her belly, after casting off her sweater onto the floor. Takatsuki Sen kneels over her. The clasp of Touka’s bra snaps as it’s undone. The shadow of her arm crosses Touka’s line of sight as Takatsuki Sen reaches. Takatsuki Sen picks up a calligraphy pen, and an apple.

The noise of her chewing is loud. Touka jumps a little, as she feels a cool droplet on her spine. The next droplet is even colder.

“I’ll dedicate it just for you, Touka-chan,” Takatsuki Sen tells her, between bites, and it’s a simple touch, but Touka still grips the sheets. The brush tip loops back and forth across the skin just above her kakuhou.

What she writes covers up her entire right shoulder blade. Touka shifts, but Takatsuki Sen perches lower, letting her weight keep Touka still. The pen poses again, and moves, and moves, and moves. Curling sentences around her twitching muscles. Dappling her with paragraphs.

Later, in the mirror, Touka can only make out one phrase. It’s the only one not smudged beyond coherence. It’s the one that always struck her, but which she never told Takatsuki Sen about.

_In this room_ , Takatsuki Sen wrote, _you mustn’t love anyone_.

:::

Her stories often end, jarringly. With a feeling like there should have been pages upon pages more. But what can be done about it?

:::

It’s been a while since she has read those books. Really, it’s been a while since she has needed to. The ink runs down the drain and yet all her words stay, indelible.

When she comes across Takatsuki Sen’s new novel, a surprise release, she is startled into picking it up. In the privacy of her room, the spine snaps.

It’s exciting. And...disconcerting.

Like meeting an ex-lover.

:::

One of the stories isn’t quite like the others. No prisoners, no murderers.

In it, there is a woman, in a cafe, who is unable to eat normal food. Every night, she eats a book: scrapes the binding from the spine with a spoon, quarters every page with a knife. Her skin becomes desiccated, and blotchy with stanzas just beneath the skin. Subcutaneous worlds, sleeping.

One day, the woman crawls into a bookcase in her cafe, and waits for someone to come and crack her open.


End file.
